Ephesians 4:25-27
English Standard Version (ESV)
25 Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.
26 Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and give no opportunity to the devil.
Do you ever get ANGRY? What do you do with your Christian Anger?
Do you let many moons set on your ANGER, even though the Bible tells us NOTto let even one day go by?
I rarely get angry because I am quick to remember the hurtful consequences of past anger; but one day last week, I became angry.
I hope that it was righteous anger. I was lashing out against a sense of frustration in trying to defend my wife against an immovable bureaucracy causing high cost of injustice. (I wanted it taken care of RIGHT AWAY!) Have you ever been there?
Of course in time our Lord will right all injustice and reward all PATIENCE for suffering injustice. It may have been “righteous anger.”
After the situation was partially resolved, I made a phone call to the person who patiently endured my tirade of something out of her control and I apologized (before the sun set on her tough day).
Here is what helped me to PAUSE before I let out anger
Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
Even when Jesus showed righteous anger, his anger was witness to God!
Careful… Our ANGER usually is not witness for God and makes others think that Jesus makes NO difference in us, IF HE is NOT Lord over our ANGER.
Between the STIMULUS ……..and……response…. Pause for Jesus’ sake.
We PAUSE here for you to Worship our Lord over the weekend…
…to be continued with a series beginning Monday, 16 September 2013:
ANGRY Children of a Loving God
